Pope Francis, the revolution of informality

After Bishop Paskalis Syukur asked not to be created cardinal, Pope Francis decided that the number of red hats with the right to vote in the Conclave would remain unchanged: there will be 20. In Syukur’s place, Pope Francis has decided to give the red hat to the Archbishop of Naples, Domenico Battaglia.

Pope Francis, however, did not announce the name at the end of the Angelus prayer or the general audience. He announced the upcoming creation of a cardinal through a brief statement from the director of the Holy See Press Office. True, it is only a detail. However, it says much about how Pope Francis views the cardinalate.

The cardinal is not appointed. He is created. The Pope personally picks the cardinal and vests him with the cardinalatial dignity via his power. The cardinal is not just any office. It is an office that is added to all the other offices and goes beyond every office. If an archbishop is created cardinal, he does not cease to be Archbishop. He maintains his functions. The cardinalate, however, makes him like a prince of the blood, part of those who are called to govern the Church together with the Pope.

It is said that the cardinal is created also to distinguish the creation from a simple appointment.

The creation is effective only when the Pope imposes the red hat during a consistory, and the College of Cardinals has a decree that certifies it. However, the Pope announces the lists at least a month before, mostly for pragmatic reasons. To be created a cardinal, in fact, one must be present, and all the other cardinals must also be present. Therefore, the cardinals must organize the transfer from every part of the world to be in Rome on the convocation day.

The Pope announces the names publicly because this is not just any appointment. He usually does so after an Angelus or at the end of a general audience (but Pope Francis has never used this moment) so that the Pope’s decision is public. The list also has a particular meaning. The order in which the new cardinals are listed also establishes the importance that the Pope wants to give to this or that cardinal or to this or that position.

For example, when announcing his first consistory in 2014, Pope Francis placed Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri, then general secretary of the Synod, second on the list, after the new Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican Secretary of State, but before Gerhard Ludwig Mueller, prefect of the then Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. It was a sign of how much importance Pope Francis attributed to the Synod, as seen throughout his pontificate. This was so much so that in the 2020 consistory, Cardinal Mario Grech was first on the list, appointed by the Pope as the new general secretary of the Synod.

In short, there is codified language when announcing the creation of new cardinals. Pope Francis, however, has abandoned all traditional codes. Archbishop Angelo Acerbi opens the list of the 2024 Consistory: he is 99 years old and, therefore, will not even be able to vote in a Conclave. Immediately after,  three cardinals from other locations interrupt the first group of South American residential bishops, while a new cardinal from Brazil seems to be isolated from the group.

The inclusion of Archbishop Battaglia in the list with a brief statement testifies that Pope Francis no longer looks to tradition or the languages of the past. He has decided to implement his languages.

The list of cardinals has been supplemented or added before. John Paul II did it in 2001, the largest Conclave in history, when he announced 37 new cardinals on January 21, and the following week, he added another five cardinals and revealed the names of two cardinals in pectore. He did so, however, always in public.

On the other hand, Pope Francis could not wait until the general audience to announce Battaglia’s inclusion among the new cardinals. Instead, the announcement came somewhat suddenly late on Friday evening.

What does this choice tell us? There are several hypotheses, and none of them is mutually exclusive of another.

The first hypothesis is that Pope Francis acts instinctively; therefore, when he makes a decision, he does not delay it but makes it known as quickly as possible.

The second hypothesis is that Pope Francis had thought of a particular balance for a conclave with a successor, counting on inserting 20 new cardinal electors, and did not want these to be less than twenty.

The third hypothesis is that Pope Francis equates the cardinalate to any other appointment.

This overly elaborate conspiracy hypothesis might be proven by how Pope Francis treated the cardinalate. He did not consider the cardinals to be part of the government of the Church but instead distanced them from the center of the Church. He mostly picked cardinals far from the central power. The cardinals at the center of the power are only those with whom Pope Francis truly wanted to govern.

Theoretically,  a Pope chooses the cardinals and trusts each of them. Pope Francis, however, seemingly chooses independently from the people he wants to govern with because he already knows he will not govern with them. As said, this interpretation it can just be speculation.  The detail, however, is noteworthy.

The fourth hypothesis is that Pope Francis no longer considered the ancient tradition of pontifical languages.

The Pope has taken a precise direction and no longer feels controlled or constrained by the Curia. Where the Pope finds collaborators faithful to his will, he rewards them: this is demonstrated by some new red hats, including the surprising creation of the organizer of papal trips, George Koovakand, as a cardinal, but the bishop’s appointments also indicate it, which have also shown an “asymmetric” way of Pope Francis proceeding with promotions in rank and government.

The general result is to consider the cardinalate a sort of title of “Sir” for the English crown—a star on the uniform that adds nothing but rather risks taking away everything.

But if the cardinalate is treated as a banal privilege, what about all the rest? If the institution is not considered because its language is not considered, what will become of the Holy See?

While asking these questions, we must look at what has happened in the last year.

The ruling in the trial on the management of the funds of the Secretariat of State, published last October 30, has highlighted a personalist use of the rules, with the Pope who entered the trial with four rescripts in progress. The ruling mixes Vatican City State law, Italian jurisprudence, and canon law, creating, in the end, the impression of a legal vacuum and convictions based on theses – it is theorized that embezzlement exists even when there is no personal interest, there is talk of collaboration in extortion even when it is admitted that the interests of the accused were divergent.

An opinion pro veritate by Geraldina Boni and Manuel Ganarin, canon law experts, has highlighted the critical and legal concerns of a decision of the Pontifical University Urbaniana, where a permanently employed professor was suddenly relieved of his academic duties through the application of a rule that is reserved for clerical and consecrated officials of the Roman Curia, for whom the service relationship ends due to the expiry of a pre-established time.

These are two cases among many that highlight how, in reality, there no longer seem to be rules, but above all, exceptions and decisions are imposed from above. Pope Francis has always warned against “it has always been done this way.” However, it is also true that protocol, tradition, and procedures were guarantees of impartiality, making the Holy See a credible entity.

The results of the Vatican trial have reopened the debate on the value of justice in the Vatican State, and the ghosts of those who wanted a Holy See without territory equated to an NGO or, in any case, without an independent government structure have returned. The Urbaniana issue leads to the conclusion that if a university can behave arbitrarily, then the Holy See can leave the Bologna Process, which networks European universities and guarantees mutual recognition of degrees.

This informality and arbitrariness, therefore, touch the very essence of the Church and put it outside of international circuits, isolating it and making it irrelevant. After all, as Benedict XVI said, quoting Augustine, “Without rules, what is the State if not a den of thieves?”

It thus seems that even cardinal nominations are treated without importance, and nothing is essential for the Church and the Holy See. If nothing is important, then even legal procedures can be subverted by interventions on the fly or interpreted differently according to needs.

We find ourselves with the paradox of a Church in which nothing is important except the Pope’s gestures, while the institution is condemned by informality to be sidelined.  Ultimately, the Church is condemned to international influence, just as the Pope projects himself onto the global scene with words, deeds, jokes, and gestures.